General Update Q2 2K17

I know this has been a long time coming and I’m probably late to this particular party, but I’m wondering if all the super hot sauce craze has been kind of a fad that is starting to taper. A lot of this is because of what is going on with perhaps the most prolific and well-known of the hot sauce bloggers and the guy who inadvertently got me interested in doing this via inspiration, Scott Roberts. His output has been declining for some time and it seemed he had lot the spirit to continue promoting the agenda of heat and while I probably am only now just catching up, admittedly, apparently he has gone all churchy. I have always said a price can’t be put on happiness and if this is what is making him happy, more power to him and go have fun, but that is a major voice being removed from the spicy side of things. 

I will not ever replace Scott Roberts and am not sure anyone realistically can. I think he definitely hit his stride at the right time, when there was some crazy groundswell momentum and his approach was smart to the point of brilliance, particularly with his chart. I thought he had a great premise with trying to crown king of kings of all the hot sauces and tried to help as I could, but alas, it didn’t quite shake out. All of that stuff (minus the tournament, which lives on now only in memory) will remain, from my understanding, but updates will be even more sporadic, at best, again, from what I’m gathering. Rather than say it’s a shame, I celebrate the other times and triumphs and wish him nothing but the best. 

I have refrained from any escalation into snack foods or BBQ sauces or spicy dry rubs or candies or any of that, partly because so many of them violate one of my 2 main rules (no onions, no extracts) and also because I set this up to be a hot sauce blog. Because there is no trying to outdo myself, there is no pressure to chase after hot sauce gatherings (though I would like to hit at least one someday) or create video channels or anything else that takes the fun and joy out of what has been a very pleasurable experience thus far. I also do want to note that there is still much popularization of "hot" stuff in fast food chain menus and on grocery store shelves, but it is of a much more pedestrian and "tame" variety. I think there is definitely a public interest in spice, just to a fairly limited extent.

As to TSAAF, with a flurry of activity towards the end of May and another larger shopping trip in June, which was ultimately disappointing in that I only found 1 new sauce, but also useful in that I was able to obtain several pictures to catch up on my backlog a bit, a project I’ve been long meaning to resume, I’ve finally got a little bit of action on this blog. I also have a hopefully more fulfilling trip on the near horizon, which I’m hoping gets me into both some new sauces and more pictures, but I’m running pretty close to being caught up on the more easily obtainable ones. 

I’m eyeing another job shift in the near future as well, which I’m hopeful will lend me more time to potentially partake of some spicy goodness. My tolerance has definitely waned a bit more than I would like and I’ve had that on the back burner to get back into it again. I’m a bit tired of mining grocery shelves and look forward to finding some new and exciting stuff. I don’t know that I will get to the level where I need to bomb internet sites again, as there are two very solid brick-and-mortars that I dearly love in reasonable enough proximity to skip that, but that was certainly an enjoyable experience. 

Waxing on more philosophically, we, all of us who are alive, have to deal with lifestyle shifts. My wine blog, for instance, will be almost certainly running its course once I finish the backlog of stuff I have written but not posted because my wife has decided to stop fighting her body, which has long had a low tolerance for beer and that has lately been further extended into wine as well. My interest in sitting around slugging down a bottle of wine solo is fairly low, so developing the blog further seems unlikely at best. It has its own strange and slightly twisting tale, which will be appearing in those pages at some future point. 

When I joined Yelp, I posted an obscene number of reviews in the less than 4 years I’ve been on there…that has tapered off lately and it is not anything I spend a ton of time thinking about now, but I’ve got a backlog there of about 20 pages of reviews, as of this writing, still to post up. Part of this is because of time and partly because one can get tired of anything, including chasing the new and exotic. With as many sauces tried and reviewed, when you hit on some great ones, you want those around, but there is only so much sauce one can reasonably eat and only so much money one can reasonably spend on those. Every sauce I’ve tried and loved and bought again pushes newer stuff that much further back, so unless and until this somehow winds up being a paying gig (I’m not looking for this, as has been pretty well documented during the course of this blog) and someone wants to make it a point to finance my time and sauce habit, there necessarily will be sacrifices to be made.

Which brings us full circle. Even if someone does want that, does the current climate make that a smart investment? Is the hot sauce clamor still on or has it be commercialized and homogenized to the point where there is no room for smaller sauces and companies to get traction? Are people still looking around for a community or is it more to see who has the most absurd and stupidest YouTube video? I have yet to see any food-related show be exclusively devoted to hot challenges, which kind of tells me the thought behind that potential demographic, but I’m also surprised, because that seems like a really good idea. Still, most of the food challenge shows are with “normal” stuff, just often in gross quantities, so the viewers in the audience can at least relate. Most people are still pretty scared of heat…

Anyway, no idea what exactly lies on the road ahead, but I’m still eyeing 200…and finishing – to the extent possible – that picture project…I think a few of the titles I don’t have are from now-defunct sauce makers or the makers are still around, but the sauces are not. Several are challenging because the sauces were so bad, I would never consider buying them again. 

As of now, there are 130 full sauce reviews and depending on if you count the 20 mini-reviews, I don’t, particularly, 150 is probably a much more sane and realistic goal for the year…of those 130 full reviews, 77 have photos, which I think is pretty good, considering…I didn’t start photos at all until I hit 100 reviews in October of 2015 and largely forgot about it for a bit, so almost 60%, particularly when there are a few novelty sauces kicking around in there that I will be hard-pressed to ever get pics of is a number I’m pretty happy with.

As I leave off here, in another couple of months, this blog will be turning 5 years old, something that still strikes me as incredible…thank you to everyone who’s stopped by or told a friend.

Private Selection Jalapeno Tomatillo Hot Sauce Review

Private Selection Jalapeno Tomatillo Hot Sauce

This, then, brings us right to the end of the 4 sauces of the Kroger Culinary Hot Sauces. What I had hoped for with this one was sort of repetition of the Salvation Sauce from Danny Cash, for which my wife has been increasingly vocally requesting. That is by far her favorite sauce of any I've gotten. Few are those she can or is willing to eat and fewer still the ones she enjoyed, but she loved that one and would greatly prefer it stay on hand. A sauce I have to perpetually order in is kind of pain, though, particularly when I am not placing sauce orders online with any frequency at all. So, I was cautiously hopeful when I saw this one as it could at least possibly be a much easier and probably ultimately more practical solution.

This one also typifies another of the issues I have with these sauces, besides the fact that only one of them I would consider purchasing again and that is a dropper cap on a glass bottle. It is a larger opening on the restrictor, to be sure, but still a large scale PITA with all of these sauces. This one will take some solid usage to get enough distance in there to really be able to get it cohesively back out again, which is annoying.

There is no heat to this, as expected and in flavor, it falls very short of the Danny Cash wonder stuff. However, wonder of wonders, my wife seems to really like the highly astringent nature of this (well beyond anything enjoyable to me and certainly beyond the Salvation Sauce), so I won't ever be using it, but we have easy access to it and my wife alone will now have a sauce of her very own in the door to use and enjoy at her leisure and to refill with ease.

Bottom line: I think you could probably put this with something else and make a fairly acceptable tomatillo sauce...or you could just make a fairly acceptable tomatillo sauce to begin with. I don't find this necessary in any context, but if you are in a situation similar to the one portrayed above, this may be of some use.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 3

Torchbearer Zombie Apocalypse Hot Sauce Review

Torchbearer Zombie Apocalypse 

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook & Instagram. 

Note: This sauce appears on Seasons 3 & 4 of The Hot Ones. 

While there is more than a passing commonality with the Rapture sauce from Torchbearer (reviewed elsewhere here), as it shares several ingredients, I would hesitate to call this "Rapture-Lite". It has its own distinctive flavor and style and given the "zombie" part of the nomenclature here, one can naturally expect that is be far more abrasive, as that tends to be the one common theme and element uniting all sauces sporting that moniker. So, we definitely have harsher pepper notes here, particularly in the black pepper and while this is lower in SHU than the Rapture, it is somewhat less enjoyable to partake as well. Much of the other review also applies to this in terms of usage and which foods it works best with.

I'm not a fan of "challenge" sauces, which are to test this or that characteristic or even of the challenges themselves, to be blunt. All of that sort of stuff is lost on me and I want some good flavor that complements the food or elevates it and adds the sometimes missing heat element that I tend to have as a preference. I'm not extreme in any sense in this regard, in that I don't attempt to use it on ever single thing I eat, but when I do bust out the sauce, I'm really wanting flavor first, which is why Trappey's Red Devil sauce was so beloved for so long. I still try to keep a bottle around, just because it is a fond, familiar and dependable flavor, Old Reliable itself.

As far as sauces go, this is probably not one I would consider getting again, but compared to several of the other "zombie" sauces I've tried, this is near the top as Torchbearer are aces, without question. Just there name on something is enough to get me interested and though this isn't pushing all of the right buttons with me, I will definitely not be punting on the bottle. It is certainly well-crafted, so no knock there. It mostly just doesn't jibe with me quite enough. 

Bottom line: I think they meant this sauce as one to work up to the Rapture, as I believe it is the second hottest in their lineup. It is fairly abrasive, but more or less in line with the other "zombie" offerings out there. Good for those who want a little punishment with their sauce...

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 3
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3

Private Selection Peruvian Aji Amarillo Hot Sauce Review

Private Selection Peruvian Aji Amarillo Hot Sauce

Two down and two to go in the so-called "Culinary Hot Sauce" line from the higher end of the two Kroger store brands. This one is by far the worst-tasting of all of them, with spices far more reminiscent of something for baking, but a flavor profile that is frankly just not very good. Both plain, by itself and in conjunction with being utilized as a grill sauce, the taste, while not outright foul, does tend to detract from food...when enough of it is used to be noticeable. It's hard to determine exactly what they were going for here as this things missed on everything I tried it on. There is very precious little heat to be had and it's hard to see where this would fit in anywhere. Overall, even as an experiment, this was simply not worth getting or even using.

Bottom line: This is a near-total bust. Not the worst sauce I've had, but I bailed on it well before finishing the bottle and so far, this is the worst of the new Private Selection Culinary line.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 0
            Flexibility: 0
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall:0

Private Selection Peri Peri Hot Sauce Review

Private Selection Peri Peri Hot Sauce

This is the second of 4 in the new series of "boutique", as in grocery store boutique, hot sauces straight from the minds and presumably kitchens and vats of the Kroger grocery empire. While the Mango sauce (reviewed elsewhere here) was pretty worthy, this one is what I call a "stepper" sauce, as in a sauce that you use to increase the heat of another sauce while not modifying the flavor much. The flavor here is rather mild, but by itself, while not unpalatable, is very uninteresting...rather a pity, as much more can be done with these peppers. This attribute makes it great for a stepper sauce, but not very good as a standalone. The heat is also somewhat minimal, but it does work well nearly across the board, so things like Mexican sauces, ketchup, barbeque sauces, all benefit from this. The only one that this really doesn't do well with is Louisiana-style sauces but those are really meant solely as standalones.

Taken on its own, this is not a very good sauce and if you're buying right, you shouldn't really have need for a stepper sauce, but I do find this to be of use with some of the other sauces. Once I run out of those, though, there will be little value to this...

Bottom line: As a standalone sauce, this is a pass and your mileage will vary depending on what value, if any, you attach to a stepper sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 4

Private Selection Mango Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce Review

Private Selection Mango Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce

Note: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZMz2_8963Q

A note before I start the review proper, which I don't usually do. As you may have surmised from either my numerous Yelp reviews or this blog, I'm based in Salt Lake City. As such, I find it opportune to have a go-to grocer. That one for me (and one of the largest in the area) is Smith's, which is part of the Kroger family. The "Private Selection" label refers to their higher end house/store brand. They have recently launched a line called "Culinary Hot Sauce" within it.

I have chosen to start with the best of the lot for this introduction, the Mango Scotch Bonnet. As regular readers may have noted, my favorite pepper generally is the Cayenne. Say that someone asked for my second-favorite. Odds are, it would probably be the Scotch Bonnet, which is kind of odd, I suppose, considering my general disdain for its close relative, the Habanero. There, however, as the saying goes, it is, though. I have yet to have a bad hot sauce with Scotch Bonnet, providing they don't also include my two nemesises (nemesi?), that being extract and onions. I also find the Scotch Bonnet to be one of the tastier peppers in general.

I will say I have not had a solid Mango-hot sauce...until now, that is. Despite misgivings, considering this is a sauce from a large grocer containing what I consider a very volatile flavoring element, it succeeded wildly. It captures, somehow, the fruit well, with both that sort of tangy tartness frequently a hallmark of the fruit, with the distinct sweetness it is known for. It also rounds it out nicely with that flavor profile and (admittedly minor) heat that the Scotch Bonnet provides. This is a well-crafted and well-blended sauce and my main (and perhaps only) complaint is the idiot cap that comes with it, something that plagues the entire line. A dropper cap with a glass bottle with a thick sauce is a shit combination and they should not have made that choice, as one has to remove the cap entirely for usage to make any sense at all.

Bottom line: This is the best of the lot for the Culinary Hot Sauce line from Private Selection. Only minor heat and is best used as a dipping sauce, but the flavor profile is excellent. Worth a look.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 6

Torchbearer The Rapture Hot Sauce Review

Torchbearer's The Rapture Hot Sauce

Billed as the hottest natural hot sauce in the world and the hottest of the entire Torchbearer line-up, I've seen it listed at more than 1.2 million SHU, which, if true, makes this probably the hottest sauces I've reviewed in these pages and the hottest sauce I've had that did not have an extract element. It is also quite flavorful, with a very nice sweet and citrusy element, which I've heard ascribed to the presence of the mandarin oranges and carrots. Obviously, with the crazy amount of superhot peppers - specifically the Trinidad Scorpion, the Jolokias and the Habaneros for 66.6% of the actual sauce content - you probably will be straining to get a lot of that flavor while your mouth slowly begins its meltdown, but it is definitely present, at least in the beginning.

This is a sauce that takes some degree of caution for best results. I made the mistake of oversaucing a few things with it and that is a mistake you will have plenty of time to contemplate if you also do it. It will be edible, but if you use it sparingly, you can achieve a very nice balance that complements foods, particularly fried foods, such as the ubiquitous chicken strips, quite nicely. Go too far overboard, though and this thing will tend to send your senses over the edge, which makes things rather unenjoyable for a while. It is a slow build, if you use it the way I described as preferable, but it will nail things to the wall fairly immediately (but still not as fast as extract), if you go full boat and overload things. It's a very expensive sauce to use in that manner also...consequently, it is realistically somewhat low use, but for this kind of a trophy sauce, that's probably more what you want.

It is blended nicely and this is a sauce where clearly the designers had a very specific goal in mind and frankly nailed it. Because it clears the million SHU mark and I don't see a lot of non-extract sauces clearing that particular hurdle (and because I hate extract sauces and generally refuse to consume or review them), this also is the first sauce that gets all 10 points for heat. It is also my first SOTY  contender for 2017.

Bottom line: This is a great sauce to have in your stable. It won't go with everything and needs to have a fairly strong, yet uncomplicated flavor profile of the food you put it on for best results, but it is a very pleasant-tasting sauce overall and Torchbearer rightfully deserves much acclaim for it.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 8
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 8

Q1 2K17 Update

The overarching trend of the past 3 or 4 years continues on unabated as 2017 began very soft, mostly because I was trying really hard to clean up the open sauces in the fridge so I could get to newer ones and hopefully find a SOTY contender before the very last second, such as last year went. That task is done now. Still on tap is to clean up the pantry shelf more, but as everything I have is of the super-hot variety, that is not generally a fast task, as it takes me a bit (ok, a lot) longer to cycle through those, but that isn’t really cause for a delay to things as much as the usual considerations, such as time. It’s not as if I suddenly got an influx of free time (I’m a month late, for instance, on this post, due to a project that barely wrapped up and have another major project on the near horizon) and with a fairly intensive travel schedule for the foreseeable future, it tends to preclude being able to really spend a lot of time with bottles of sauces, as I do not and will not travel with them in tow.

I do have a lot of stuff on tap that I haven’t gotten a chance to post yet, most of which should be forthcoming prior to June…hopefully. I am also probably going to put up my first quadruple review and I’m also looking forward to being able to resume updating the rest of the sauces that need pictures at some point. I think several of those sauces are long gone, but I would also really like to put that project to bed.

Speaking of SOTY contenders, I do have one sort of kicking around, but I’m not sure it is quite there with some of the previous worthies from years past. It is, however, easily one of the hottest non-extract sauces I’ve had a review is forthcoming, though I think I want to kick it around just a touch more first. I definitely need to go hit the usual brick and mortars for a recharge and should have that done by the time I get to the Q2 update.

Sweet Baby Ray's Hot Sauce Review

Sweet Baby Ray's Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDvZoteoaJE

So here we have the newest entrance from the Sweet Baby Ray's line, which appears to be another BBQ joint like Stubb's that decided to take their restaurant sauces, rubs, etc. and go national. I don't know the backstory of Sweet Baby Ray's nor am I really motivated to look into it further, but I will address some of their other items as ok, nothing too great or terrible one way or the other, but fine if there and equally fine if not. It is that exact characteristic I would ascribe to this sauce.

Regular readers will know that Louisiana-style sauce, if not my all-time favorite overall, is right up there near the top and my fondness for Trappey's Red Devil is well-established, despite it not having any heat to speak of. It is, in fact, probably the only sauce I can think of that I would consider drinking as a beverage, though I wouldn't realistically do that. It is perfection of flavor for that style, though and the litmus test for everything else. Nearly all other sauces have been found wanting and so I didn't really have a lot of hope when I saw this one...in fact, I didn't buy it at all until I had a coupon and it's a pretty large bottle for $2. But, as it would have things, I'm trying not to buy further sauces until I whittle down further and I ran out of not only that style, but a sauce I could use as more of an everyday sauce, hence the purchase.

This is ok for that style. Truth be told, it is not even a match for Texas Pete's, let alone Irazu or Red Devil or any of those, but it's ok for what it is. No real bite to it, though more than Red Devil. It also has a cheapness to it, a sort of bitterness I attribute to the dried garlic introduction. I wish sauce manufacturers would stop doing that as it is a wholly unnecessary addition. In this case, it detracts considerably from the sauce itself.

Bottom line: For the money, if you just need a Louisiana-style cutting sauce, this is ok, as long as you remember to use sparingly. Not among the best out there, though.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 5